OMENTIN 


MASTERPIECES 

IN  COLOUR 


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MASTERPIECES 
IN     COLOUR 

EDITED    BY     -     - 
M.  HENRY   ROUJON 


FROMENTIN 

(1820-1876) 


nr  THE  SAME  SERIES 


REYNOLDS 

VELASQUEZ 

GREUZE 

TURNER 

BOTTICELLI 

ROMNEY 

REMBRANDT 

BELLINI 

FRA  ANGELICO 

ROSSETTI 

RAPHAEL 

LEIGHTON 

HOLMAN  HUNT 

TITIAN 

MILLAIS 

LUINI 

FRANZ  HALS 

CARLO  DOLCI 

GAINSBOROUGH 

TINTORETTO 

VAN  DYCK 

DA  VINCI 

WHISTLER 

RUBENS 

BOUCHER 

HOLBEIN 

PERUGINO 


BURNE-JONES 

LE  BRUN 

CHARDIN 

MILLET 

RAEBURN 

SARGENT 

CONSTABLE 

MEMLING 

FRAGONARD 

DURER 

LAWRENCE 

HOGARTH 

W^ATTEAU 

MURILLO 

WATTS 

INGRES 

COROT 

DELACROIX 

FRA  LIPPO  LIPPI 

PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES 

MEISSONIER 

GEROME 

VERONESE 

VAN  EYCK 

FROMENTIN 

MANTEGNA 


PLATE  I.  — A   HALT 

(Collection  of  M.  Sarlin) 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  call  attention  to  the  art  with  which 
Fromentin  has  succeeded  in  arranging  his  masses  of  colour  so 
as  to  secure  a  harmonious  distribution  of  light.  Could  anything 
be  more  perfectly  balanced,  in  point  of  composition,  than  this 
alluring  canvas? 


FROMENTIN 

BY    GEORGES    BEAUME 

TRANSLATED    FROM    THE    FRENCH 
BY     FREDERIC     TABER     COOPER 

ILLUSTRATED      WITH       EIGHT 
REPRODUCTIONS     IN     COLOUR 


FREDERICK    A.    STOKES    COMPANY 
NEW  YORK  —  PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT,    1913,    BY 
FREDERICK    A.    STOKES    COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


3C 
o 


m 

CONTENTS 

o  Page 

(D     The  First  Steps ii 

^     The  Promised  Land        .         .         ,         .         .         .        .29 

An  Evolution 45 

The  Master  and  His  Destiny 58 


HflR^/ECL 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

Plate 

I.     Halt  of  Horsemen        ....  Frontispiece 

M.  Sarlin's  Collection 

II.     The  Arab  Encampment 14 

Musee  du  Louvre 

III.  Thirst 24 

M.  Jacques  Normand's  Collection 

IV.  The  Sirocco  in  the  Oasis  •        •        •        •      34 

Musee  du  Louvre 

V.     An  Arab  Fantasia 40 

M.  Sarlin's  Collection 

VI.     Egyptian  Women  on  the  Bank  of  the  Nile  .       50 

Musee  du  Louvre 

VII.     Hunting  with  the  Falcon 60 

Musee  du  Louvre 

VIII.     Halt  of  Horsemen 7° 

Musee  du  Louvre 


I.  — THE    FIRST   STEPS 

EUGENE-SAMUEL-AUGUSTE  FROMENTIN- 
DUPEUX  was  born  at  La  Rochelle  on  the 
twenty-fourth  of  October,  1820.  His  family  was  a 
very  old  one  and  held  in  high  honour  throughout 
Aunis  and  Saintonge. 

Aunis,  one  of  the  ancient   provinces  of  France, 

glows  languidly  beneath  the  caresses  of  a  humid  sun, 

11 


12  FROMENTIN 

enveloped  in  a  thin  veil  of  ocean  mists,  and  at  times 
she  seems  to  float  in  the  midst  of  her  waves  and  her 
sands,  beneath  a  sky  bounded  by  remote  and  inde- 
terminate horizons,  vague  and  immense,  like  some 
vast  wreckage  overgrown  with  gardens  and  oases. 
For  more  than  a  century,  she  was  downtrodden  by  the 
English.  But  if  she  owes  them  the  pain  and  humilia- 
tion of  defeat,  they  at  least  inspired  her  with  a  pas- 
sion for  commercial  greatness  and  a  desire  for  wealth. 
Through  her  shipowners  and  bankers,  she  amassed 
riches  that  permitted  her  to  devote  a  goodly  share 
of  her  days  to  leisure  and  festivities,  for  the  better- 
ment of  her  material  welfare  and  the  embellishment 
of  her  mind.  Thus  in  the  midst  of  this  industrious 
community,  faithful  to  its  duties,  jealous  of  its  lib- 
erty, there  was  slowly  formed  a  powerful  and  cultured 
bourgeois  class,  eager  for  all  forms  of  intellectual 
improvement. 

Eugene  Fromentin's  family  was,  on  the  father's 
side,  attached  by  ancientroots  to  the  soil  of  Aunis. 


PLATE   II THE   ARAB   ENCAMPMENT 

(Musee  du  Louvre) 

Against  the  sombre  verdure  of  the  oasis,  the  whiteness  of  the 
tent  stands  out  in  sharp  relief.  The  Arabs  are  resting :  meanwhile 
their  horses,  untethered,  roam  at  will.  This  essentially  simple 
scene,  undoubtedly  drawn  straight  from  life,  owes  its  charm  to 
Fromentin's  admirable  art,  and  his  ability  to  throw  some  gleam 
of  light  even  into  his  densest  masses  of  shade. 


FROMENTIN  15 

His  ancestors  were  nearly  all  of  them  lawyers  and 
judges,  and  as  far  back  as  they  can  be  traced, 
even  to  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
formed  a  part  of  this  bourgeois  class,  which,  in 
that  region  of  ardent  Protestantism,  constituted  a 
sort  of  aristocracy. 

His  father  was  a  physician  of  great  ability,  and  for 
thirty-three  years  was  director  of  the  Lafond  insane 
asylum,  which  he  had  founded  not  far  from  La  Rochelle. 
He  had  a  reputation  for  wit,  but  indecision  and  sus- 
picion stifled  the  better  impulses  of  his  nature.  Fro- 
mentin's  mother,  whose  educational  advantages  had 
been  slight,  had  by  contrast  a  sensitive  and  warm- 
hearted disposition.  It  was  she  whom  the  painter 
resembled  in  all  the  details  of  his  physical  nature  and 
in  all  the  qualities  of  his  moral  nature,  while  Charles, 
his  elder  brother,  practical  and  taciturn,  resembled 
their  father,  whose  vocation  he  followed. 

The  mentality  of  Eugene  Fromentin  developed 
early.     At  school,  he  surprised  all  his  instructors  by 


i6  FROMENTIN 

his  ability  to  assimilate  knowledge  and  to  think 
things  out  for  himself,  and  he  was  loved  by  them 
all.  Later  on,  he  confessed  that  "his  childhood  had 
been  very  lively,  almost  boisterous."  But  some- 
where during  his  fifteenth  year,  a  marked  change 
took  place  in  him.  **I  had  involuntarily  formed 
the  habit,"  he  confessed  further,  "of  reserve  and 
silence,  a  habit  that  was  often  to  my  disadvantage, 
and  which  was  respected  quite  as  much  through  pity 
as  through  tolerance.  Yet  it  is  to  this  habit  that  I 
owed  the  chance  to  develop  in  accordance  with  my 
nature;  otherwise,  I  should  have  grown  up  warped 
and  unfit."  And  M.  Pierre  Blanchon,  from  whose 
admirably  documented  volume  i  these  details  are 
borrowed,  adds  further:  "His  views  upon  art  and 
poetry  clashed  with  the  bourgeois  ideas  of  his 
environment;  the  doctor  looked  upon  them  as  mere 
nonsense,  while  his  mother  feared  that  they  would 
lead  him  into  temptation."    As  a  matter  of  fact,  at 

1  Eugine  Fromentin,  LeUres  de  Jeunesse. 


FROMENTIN  17 

the  very  period  when  he  was  passing  through  the  moral 
crisis  of  adolescence,  a  romantic  attachment  shook  his 
soul  to  its  very  depths  with  the  emotions  of  love. 

About  half  a  league  from  town,  just  before  entering 
the  village  of  Saint-Maurice,  the  Fromentins  owned 
a  country  place.  The  country  roundabout  is  nothing 
but  a  level  plain,  fertile  and  bare,  stretching  away  to 
the  coast,  where  the  sea,  harnessed  by  Richelieu,  loses, 
among  its  encroaching  capes  and  islands,  all  its  grandeur 
and  poetry.  Among  their  country  neighbours  there 
happened  to  be  a  certain  Madame  X.,  left,  at  the  age 
of  forty- three,  the  widow  of  a  captain  in  the  mer- 
chant marine.  She  spent  her  winters  at  La  Rochelle 
and  her  summers  at  Saint-Maurice.  She  had  a 
daughter,  born  at  Port  Louis,  in  the  island  of  Mar- 
tinique, in  1817,  and  consequently  three  years  older 
than  Eugene  Fromentin.  Madeleine  —  let  us,  from  a 
feeling  of  pious  respect,  refer  to  her  only  by  the  name 
she  bears  in  Dominique  — -  Madeleine,  being  of  Creole 
blood  on  her  mother's  side,  had  the  darkest  of  hair 


i8  FROMENTIN 

and  eyes,  combined  with  a  fair  and  almost  colourless 
complexion.  We  know  next  to  nothing  about  her. 
He  had  conceived  for  her  a  violent  attachment. 
Brusquely,  she  was  snatched  from  the  heaven  in  which 
the  secret  hopes  and  dreams  of  his  fifteen  years  had 
framed  her.  She  became  the  wife  of  an  assistant  col- 
lector of  taxes.  Fromentin  suffered  impotently  from 
jealousy,  and  all  the  more  because  his  passion  was 
sincere  and  ingenuous.  His  light-heartedness  vanished, 
together  with  his  self-assurance;  he  mistrusted  his  own 
sentiments,  he  probed  and  analyzed  his  thoughts.  To 
retire  to  the  comforting  privacy  of  his  fireside  and  bury 
himself  in  literary  work,  poetry,  critical  essays,  frag- 
ments of  drama,  such  was  his  way  of  healing  his 
wounds. 

Some  of  these  productions  of  his  adolescence 
reveal  him  as  a  student  well  grounded  in  rhetoric, 
very  serious-minded  and  painstaking,  nurtured  on 
the  solid  substance  of  the  best  classics,  and  possessed 
of  an    uneasy    spirit,    in    which    there    had    already 


FROMENTIN  19 

awakened  a  taste  for  big,  fundamental  ideas,  together 
with  a  goading  ambition  to  achieve,  through  his 
own  unaided  efforts,  some  creative  work  of  beauty. 
Furthermore,  these  early  efforts  show  a  great  facility 
of  expression,  an  abundant  and  substantial  eloquence 
that  seeks  distinction,  not  by  affecting  strange 
mannerisms,  but  by  frankly  employing  the  simplest 
of  methods. 

Having  completed  his  college  course,  Fromentin 
lived  for  a  year  somewhat  at  haphazard.  His  literary 
efforts  became  known  in  La  Rochelle,  and  before  long 
won  him  the  esteem  of  the  numerous  men  of  letters 
who,  in  those  days,  to  us  the  legendary  days  of  the 
post-chaise  and  stage-coach,  were  drawn  to  a  city 
where  the  social  life  was  so  distinctive  and  so  intense. 
From  time  to  time,  he  would  steal  out  in  the  evening 
and  furtively  slip  a  manuscript  in  prose  or  verse  into 
the  letter-box  of  the  Journal  de  La  Rochelle.  The 
next  morning  the  poem  or  story  or  critical  paragraph 
would  appear,  without  signature,  in  the  columns  of 


20  FROMENTIN 

the  journal.     But  everyone  who  read  it  would,  without 
hesitation,  mentally  sign  the  name  of  Fromentin. 

He  was  now  beginning  to  sketch  and  paint.  The 
morose  doctor,  his  father,  who  was  himself  an  amateur 
artist  of  no  mean  ability,  initiated  him  into  the  rudi- 
ments of  the  craft.  The  hour  had  come,  however, 
for  choosing  some  serious  career  for  the  lad.  Charles 
was  in  Paris,  studying  medicine.  Eugene  was  piloted 
in  the  direction  of  the  law.  He  left  La  Rochelle  in 
November,  1839,  not  without  some  pangs,  for  he 
was  leaving  behind  him,  perhaps  forever,  the  woman 
whom  he  had  worshipped  with  all  his  soul;  and, 
sensitive  and  nervous  as  he  was,  he  experienced  a 
genuine  dread  of  invading  unknown  territory,  the  huge 
city  of  Paris,  so  far  away  from  his  own  kindly  province, 
which  had  been  so  indulgent  to  his  early  efforts,  so 
tender  to  the  first  dreams  of  his  heart.  At  this  time, 
his  figure  was  slender  and  well  proportioned,  save 
that  he  was  somewhat  too  short  in  the  leg.  His  head 
was  comparatively  a  trifle  large.     His  pale  complexion 


FROMENTIN  21 

was  at  times  tinged  with  a  faint  flush.  His  long  brown 
hair  fell  upon  his  shoulders.  His  cheeks  were  full, 
the  contour  of  his  face  formed  a  fine,  elongated  oval. 
His  lips,  surmounted  by  a  budding  moustache,  were 
heavy;  his  forehead  high  and  rounded  and  very 
handsome.  His  nose,  which  in  later  years  filled  out 
and  assumed  an  aquiline  form,  was  at  that  time  per- 
fectly straight.  His  eyes,  beneath  well-formed  eye- 
brows, were  brown,  and  perhaps  somewhat  too  large, 
but  very  attractive  and  very  gentle,  far  more  so  than 
they  were  later  on;  in  moments  of  enthusiasm,  which 
in  those  days  were  fairly  frequent,  or  when  under  the 
influence  of  astonishment  or  sadness,  he  would  raise 
them  towards  heaven  with  an  expression  of  profundity. 
In  Paris,  he  lived  at  first  by  himself  and  in  seclusion. 
His  aversion  to  vulgarity  and  extravagances  of  speech 
or  manners  was  ridiculed  by  some  of  his  comrades, 
who  nicknamed  him  "little  Monsieur  Comme-il-faut." 
He  followed  the  courses  in  the  law  school  only  half- 
heartedly, but  was  assiduous  in  his  attendance  at  the 


22  FROMENTIN 

lectures  of  Michelet,  Quinet,  and  Sainte-Beuve,  in  the 
Sorbonne. 

As  a  connoisseur  of  the  beautiful  in  human  handi- 
work, Fromentin  soon  learned  to  love  Paris  and  to 
appreciate,  in  her  environs,  Versailles,  Saint-Germain, 
Montmorency,  those  picturesque  landscapes  that  com- 
bine the  charm  of  nature  with  the  glorious  high-lights 
of  history.  Although  without  a  teacher,  he  spent  more 
and  more  time  in  sketching  the  changing  forms  of 
life,  and  strove,  so  far  as  it  lay  in  him,  to  retain  in  his 
drawings  the  secret  tremors  of  the  soul.  **  These  are 
his  first  stumbling  utterances  as  a  landscape  painter," 
wrote  M.  Louis  Gonse  in  his  extensive  and  admirable 
work,  critical  as  well  as  biographical,  in  which  he  has 
reproduced  the  earliest  known  sketch  by  Fromentin, 
a  scene  from  Chatterton,  drawn  the  morning  after  a 
performance  of  De  Vigny's  drama  at  the  Theatre 
Frangaise.  This  pen-and-ink  sketch,  dated  April  2, 
1841,  shows  facility,  sureness  of  touch,  and  a  certain 
felicity  in  composition. 


PLATE    III. —THIRST 
(Collection  of  M.  Jacques  Normand) 

Fromentin,  who  was  a  precise  observer  as  well  as  a  brilliant 
artist,  noted  all  the  picturesque  scenes  of  the  desert.  How  many 
times  he  must  have  witnessed  such  halts  as  this  beneath  the 
burning  African  sun,  which  parches  the  throat !  It  is  worth  while 
to  note  the  truth  of  the  native's  attitude  as  he  greedily  drinks 
the  water  of  the  oasis.  One  should  also  notice  the  art  with  which 
the  painter  has  grouped  his  figures  and  garments  in  this  unfin- 
ished work,  in  such  a  way  as  to  fling  a  violent  and  joyous  note 
across  the  sombre  monotony  of  the  desert. 


FROMENTIN  25 

Far  from  relinquishing  his  literary  efforts,  Fromentin 
applied  himself,  from  this  time  onward,  with  increased 
ardour,  and,  throwing  off  the  trammels  of  romanticism, 
produced  poems,  critical  studies,  and  even  a  comedy, 
written  in  collaboration  with  his  friend,  Emile 
Deltremieux. 

From  this  time  onward,  Fromentin  held  firmly  to 
a  conviction  on  which  all  his  efforts  as  painter  and 
author  were  destined  to  be  based:  namely,  that  an 
artist,  instead  of  imitating  the  masters,  should  draw 
his  inspiration  solely  from  himself,  from  his  own  emo- 
tions and  memories,  and  that,  if  he  aspires  to  speak 
sincerely,  in  a  new  and  original  language,  he  ought  to 
belong  to  some  one  country,  to  reflect  its  image  and 
to  repeat  its  accent.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  himself 
was  not,  excepting  in  appearance,  uprooted  from  his 
native  soil.  In  the  depths  of  his  inmost  conscious- 
ness, there  always  resounded  the  echo  of  his  province. 

But  for  the  time  being,  while  he  amused  himself 
in  studying  the  reasons  for  things  and  administering 


26  FROMENTIN 

to  himself  doses  of  his  own  keen  analysis,  he  suffered 
from  that  curious  affliction  of  dual  personality  which, 
twenty-five  years  later,  he  described  in  Dominique: 
"That  cruel  gift  of  being  able  to  look  on  at  one's 
own  life  as  at  a  performance  given  by  someone  else. 
Sensibility  is  an  admirable  gift;  in  the  order  of 
creation  it  may  become  a  rare  power,  but  on  one 
condition:  namely,  that  one  does  not  turn  it  against 
oneself." 

Having  taken  his  licentiate's  degree,  Fromentin 
pursued  his  studies  for  the  doctorate.  He  entered 
the  law  office  of  M.  Denormandie.  There  he  met,  as 
fellow  clerks,  the  future  lawyer,  M.  Nicolet,  and 
Forcade  de  la  Roquette,  destined  later  to  become 
minister.  Here  Fromentin  spent  his  time  chiefly  in 
drawing  sketches  on  the  desk  pads,  the  margins  of 
legal  pleadings,  and  even  the  panels  of  the  doors. 
One  day  he  descended  into  the  courtyard  and  covered 
the  coach-house,  stable,  and  party-wall  with  his  artistic 
efforts.     He  paid  long  and  frequent  visits  to  the  Louvre. 


FROMENTIN  27 

The  Italian  school  left  him  wellnigh  indifferent.  In 
the  French  school  he  ranked  Chardin  above  all  the 
rest.  But  already  his  chief  enthusiasm  was  reserved 
for  the  Dutch.  The  Ford,  by  Wynauts,  with  figures 
by  Berchem,  and  Ruysdael's  Sunstroke  and  Dyke 
beaten  by  the  Sea  fascinated  him.  At  times,  he  con- 
ceived a  fine  passion  for  Rubens.  Rembrandt,  how- 
ever, from  first  to  last,  was  very  nearly,  if  not  quite, 
incomprehensible  to  him.  **He  reproached  Ingres,** 
records  M.  Louis  Gonse,  "for  being  an  imitator  of 
Raphael;  nevertheless,  he  declared,  after  seeing  one 
of  Ingres'  sketches,  that  he  was  a  sculptor  of  the 
first  order.  As  regards  music,  he  knew  Mozart  and 
Beethoven  only  by  reputation;  he  loved  Bellini, 
Donizetti,  etc.,  and  the  entire  sensualistic  school 
of  Rossini." 

Apparently  Fromentin  was  now  hesitating  between 
two  paths,  that  of  the  fine  arts  and  that  of  belles- 
lettres.  It  is  my  own  deep  conviction  that  his  choice 
had   already  been  made.     He   knew  that   literature, 


28  FROMENTIN 

worthily  conceived  and  liberally  practised,  cannot 
become  a  career  capable  of  supporting  the  man  who 
follows  it.  He  saw  daily,  with  his  wise  and  prudent 
judgment,  that  painting,  on  the  contrary,  can  guarantee 
bread  and  fuel  to  an  artist  of  real  talent,  respectful  of 
his  art  and  loyal  in  his  efforts.  Accordingly,  he  wrote 
henceforth  in  his  leisure  hours,  and  when  the  mood 
was  on  him,  economizing  his  strength  and  hoping 
only  that  the  art  of  his  written  word  might  attract 
attention  and  perhaps  awaken  sympathy. 

At  last,  unable  to  endure  any  longer  the  legal  dust 
of  M.  Denormandie's  office,  he  boldly  confided  to  a 
friend  of  the  family  his  horror  of  judicial  procedure, 
and  confessed  his  desire  to  devote  himself  wholly  to 
painting.  This  friend,  Charles  Michel,  promptly  went 
to  La  Rochelle,  to  open  negotiations  with  Dr.  Fro- 
mentin;  and  the  latter,  after  a  vigorous  protest,  ended 
by  yielding.  But,  priding  himself  on  his  knowledge 
of  such  matters,  he  insisted  upon  choosing  Eugene's 
instructor,  and  selected  the  painter  Remond,  who  at 


FROMENTIN  29 

that  time  represented  the  academic  school  of  land- 
scape painting.  Fortunately  for  him,  Eugene  did  not 
remain  long  in  Remond's  studio,  but  left  it  to  enter 
that  of  Cabat.  A  correct  and  careful  artist,  and  one 
of  the  best,  next  to  Dupre  and  Rousseau,  Cabat  had 
opened  a  new  path  for  landscape  painting  —  a  path 
in  which  it  would  not  be  very  hard  to  discover  the 
influence  which  this  celebrated  master  of  the  landscape 
exerted  over  the  earlier  manner  of  his  pupil,  through 
his  sympathetic  understanding  of  his  subjects  and  the 
grace  and  distinction  of  his  art. 

II.  — THE    PROMISED    LAND 

In  the  month  of  March,  1846,  Fortune  suddenly 
smiled  upon  Eugene  Fromentin.  His  friend,  Charles 
Labbe,  the  orientalist -painter,  was  starting  to  attend 
his  sister's  wedding  at  Blidah.  Fromentin,  in  whom 
an  ardent  curiosity  regarding  the  lands  of  sunshine 
had  been  awakened  by  an  exhibition  of  aquarelles, 
brought  back  from  the  East  by  Labbe  himself,   by 


30  FROMENTIN 

Delacroix,  Decamps,  and  notably  by  Marilhat,  enthu- 
siastically accepted  his  friend's  invitation  to  accom- 
pany him.  Had  he  some  intuition  that  a  new  world 
of  sensations  and  of  colours  awaited  him  in  Algeria? 
He  set  forth,  without  even  notifying  his  family,  light 
of  pocketbook,  but  buoyant  with  hope  and  faith.  To 
his  dazzled  eyes,  to  his  soul  seething  with  ambition,  it 
proved  to  be  literally  the  promised  land.  Within  two 
days  after  his  arrival  at  Blidah,  he  wrote:  "Everything 
here  interests  me.  The  more  I  study  nature  here,  the 
more  convinced  I  am  that,  in  spite  of  Marilhat  and 
Decamps,  the  Orient  is  still  waiting  to  be  painted. 
To  speak  only  of  the  people,  those  that  have  been 
given  tis  in  the  past  are  merely  bourgeois.  The  real 
Arabs,  clothed  in  tatters  and  swarming  with  vermin, 
with  their  wretched  and  mangy  donkeys,  their  ragged, 
sun-ravaged  camels,  silhouetted  darkly  against  those 
splendid  horizons;  the  stateliness  of  their  attitudes, 
the  antique  beauty  of  the  draping  of  all  those  rags  — 
that  is  the  side  which   has   remained   unknown.  .  .  . 


I 


FROMENTIN  31 

In  short,  from  the  point  of  view  of  my  work,  I  have 
nothing  to  complain  of,  and  at  the  rate  at  which  I  am 
progressing,  I  can  promise  you  that  I  shall  bring 
back  a  fairly  interesting  sketch-book." 

He  was  especially  appreciative  of  Marilhat  and 
Decamps ;  the  absolutely  new  brilliance  of  their  works 
haunted  him  constantly,  in  the  midst  of  his  own 
labours.  **That  talented  pair,  Marilhat  and  Decamps, 
so  Theophile  Gautier  writes  me,  are  oddly  close  neigh- 
bours, yet  they  do  not  trespass  on  each  other's  ground; 
where  the  one  has  the  advantage  in  fantasy,  the  other 
offsets  it  in  character." 

Reinstalled  in  Paris,  Fromentin  painted  with  des- 
perate zeal,  lacking  the  gift,  so  he  said,  of  inventing 
what  he  had  not  seen.  He  forced  himself  to  escape 
from  that  spirit  of  imitation  which  is  at  once  a  pleasure 
and  a  danger,  and  up  to  the  present  he  had  accomplished 
nothing  save  to  rid  himself  of  those  borrowed  qualities 
which  he  had  acquired,  without  succeeding  in  gaining 
others  which  he  could  call  his  own.     He  had,  however, 


32  FROMENTIN 

learned  —  and  this  knowledge  is  an  essential  virtue 
of  every  artist  —  that  the  real  masters  have  never 
attempted  to  reproduce  any  object  actually,  but  only 
the  spirit  which  animates  it  to  the  point  of  rendering 
it  a  treasury  of  life  and  of  beauty;  he  learned,  day  by 
day,  more  thoroughly,  that  poetry  is  everywhere,  like 
the  spark  in  the  flint;  that  the  artist  must  study 
technique  from  the  masters  and  truth  from  nature, 
but  that  he  can  find  nowhere,  except  within  himself, 
the  innate  image  of  beauty.  In  1847,  he  sent  to  the 
Salon,  which  at  that  time  was  held  in  the  Louvre, 
three  little  pictures,  which  were  unanimously  accepted: 
A  Farm  in  the  Outskirts  of  La  Rochelle,  A  Mosque 
near  Algiers,  The  Gorges  of  Chiffa.  "The  first  of  the 
pictures,"  says  M.  Gonse,  "is  characteristic  of  Fro- 
mentin's  earliest  manner.  Looked  at  only  from  the 
surface,  it  is  heavy  and  pasty.  It  was  a  timid  work, 
but  in  nowise  silly  or  vulgar.  The  Gorges  of  Chiffa 
forms  the  curtain-raiser  to  Fromentin's  Algeria."  But 
Promentin  was  exercising   more  and  more  his  power 


PLATE    IV.  — THE   SIROCCO    IN   THE   OASIS 

(Musee  du  Louvre) 

Fromentin  was  not  only  a  past-master  of  colour.  The  Sirocco 
proves,  by  the  prodigious  cataclysm  that  it  represents,  how  supple 
and  varied  was  this  painter's  talent.  And  one  must  marvel  at 
such  evidence  of  power  in  the  author  of  so  many  works  of 
exquisite  and  lyric  charm. 


FROMENTIN  35 

of  self-analysis;  he  knew  that  his  paintings  were 
nothing  more  than  a  certain  equilibrium  of  secondary 
qualities,  approximately  correct  in  design  and  agree- 
able in  colour,  but  destitute  of  motive  power.  He  had 
also  learned  the  cause  of  alteration  in  certain  tones; 
the  colours  which  he  had  been  employing  were  not  sus- 
ceptible of  combination.  "He  had  learned  that  mineral 
blue  and  Indian  yellow,  combined  with  white,  espe- 
cially with  white  of  lead,  turned  black  and  produced 
a  leaden  tone  .  .  .  also  that  paint  was  less  enduring 
on  white  canvas  than  on  canvas  already  prepared  with 
a  ground  colour." 

Algeria  had  won  him  once  and  forever.  It  was 
decreed  by  fate  that  he  should  understand  that  African 
land  which  offered  certain  points  of  resemblance  with 
the  land  of  Aunis  and  of  Saintonge.  The  same  flat, 
level  stretch,  abandoned  to  the  rages  of  the  sun,  or 
lashed  by  the  fury  of  the  tempests,  or  shivering  be- 
neath the  shadow  of  clouds;  the  same  voice  of  silence 
and  of  solitude  to  which  he  had  so  often  listened  with 


36  FROMENTIN 

beating  heart  in  the  habitually  melancholy  fields 
surrounding  La  Rochelle,  he  heard  again  in  these 
desolate  reaches  of  the  desert,  across  the  burning  sands, 
whose  infinite  extent  is  rendered  almost  sad  by  the 
excessive  ardour  of  the  light  of  heaven.  Africa  became 
the  second  land  which  he  wished  to  cherish  with  all 
his  heart  and  which  belonged  to  him:  he  made  it  his 
own  by  the  right  of  his  genius,  through  the  works  of 
his  brush  and  the  works  of  his  pen.  From  a  new 
journey  which  he  undertook  in  1852,  a  wedding 
journey,  radiant  with  every  promise  of  happiness  — 
since  he  had  just  wedded  the  sister  of  his  friend, 
Dumesnil,  who  understood  him  and  whom  he  loved  — 
he  brought  back  two  volumes,  A  Summer  in  the  Sahara 
and  An  Army  in  Sahel.  The  first  of  these  appeared 
in  the  Revue  de  Paris  and  the  second  in  the  Revue 
des  Deux  Mondes.  In  the  world  of  letters  these  two 
works  produced  a  great  sensation.  With  what  finished 
and  majestic  simplicity  Fromentin  painted  his  white 
page  with  colours  which  his  poet's  eyes  had  unerringly 


FROMENTIN  37 

retained!  "The  weather  is  magnificent.  The  heat 
is  augmenting  rapidly,  but  so  far  its  effect  upon  me 
has  been  stimulating  rather  than  exhausting.  For  the 
past  eight  days  not  a  cloud  has  appeared  on  any  part 
of  the  horizon.  The  sky  is  an  ardent  and  sterile  blue 
that  gives  promise  of  a  long  period  of  drought.  The 
wind,  fixed  in  the  east  and  almost  as  hot  as  the  air  at 
rest,  blows  intermittently,  morning  and  evening,  but 
always  very  lightly,  and  as  if  only  for  the  purpose  of 
keeping  up  a  gentle  swaying  of  the  palm  trees,  similar 
to  that  of  the  Hindoo  panwa  dance.  For  a  long  time 
past,  everyone  has  worn  the  thinnest  of  clothing  and 
broad-brimmed  hats,  and  no  one  ventures  out  of  the 
shade.  I  cannot,  however,  bring  myself  to  adopt  the 
siesta." 

Thus,  through  two  masterpieces,  a  new  writer,  of 
strong  and  pure  French  stock,  suddenly  revealed  him- 
self. The  most  distinguished  novelists  and  critics  of 
the  day,  George  Sand,  Theophile  Gautier,  Sainte- 
Beuve,  sent  him  their  heartiest  congratulations  and 


335649 


38  FROMENTIN 

sought  his  friendship.  In  both  of  these  books,  Fro- 
mentin  showed  himself  to  be  not  only  a  curious  and 
close  observer,  but  a  subtle  and  trained  psychologist. 
He  studied  not  only  the  outward  forms  of  people  and 
of  things,  he  probed  the  depths  as  well,  the  underiying 
spirit;  and  having  found  it,  he  revealed  it  to  others 
with  keen  and  original  discernment.  What  he  saw  in 
those  tribes  and  peoples,  as  new  to  him  as  they  are  to 
us,  was  not  merely  the  picturesqueness  of  their  atti- 
tudes and  the  exuberant  brilliance  of  their  land,  but 
the  whole  predestined  history  of  the  race  from  its 
origins,  as  revealed  in  the  practice  of  their  strange 
customs  and  the  passionate  intensity  of  their  instincts. 
For  Fromentin  was  not  one  of  those  who  find  satis- 
faction solely  in  the  contemplation  of  beauty.  He  was 
above  all  one  of  the  kind  that  wants  to  understand  the 
meaning  and  the  cause  of  beauty,  in  order  to  enjoy 
more  keenly  its  possession. 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  with  Fromentin  the 
painter,  who  paints  best  of  all  with  his  pen,  a  poet  of 


PLATE   v.  — AN   ARAB    FANTASIA 

(M.  Sarlin's  Collection) 

Movement,  life,  colour,  an  eddying  cloud  of  brilliant  fabrics, 
beneath  the  luminous  vault  of  an  African  sky:  such  are  the  ingre- 
dients of  this  magniticent  composition,  as  beautiful  and  as  vigor- 
ous as  any  that  the  artist  ever  produced. 


FROMENTIN  41 

the  highest  rank,  who  came  later  than  he  in  this  same 
region  of  Saintonge:  Pierre  Loti.  Roving,  restless, 
concerned  solely  with  the  misery  of  his  own  soul  and 
the  beauty  of  the  world,  Loti  carries  his  dreams  with 
him  to  the  remotest  shores,  and  in  order  to  distract 
his  thoughts  from  life  which  bores  him,  he  has  gathered 
together  extraordinary  colours,  the  brilliant  dust  of 
picturesque  ruins,  and  has  created  for  himself  a  capri- 
cious and  sensual  world,  in  which  nothing,  perhaps,  is 
real  excepting  his  own  melancholy,  yet  which  amuses 
and  enchants  him  with  its  prodigious  fund  of  poetry. 
Like  Loti,  Fromentin  also  had  an  eye  for  rich  and 
dazzling  hues  and  knew  how  to  render  them  with  his 
pen.  But  being  less  feverish,  more  self-controlled  in 
heart  and  mind,  he  did  not  write  merely  for  the  sake 
of  depicting  faces  arid  backgrounds;  he  developed 
his  robust  and  harmonious  phrases  for  the  purpose 
of  interpreting,  and  preferably  in  their  most  vivid 
aspects,  the  dominant  impulse  of  a  race,  the  art 
with   which   a   picture  is   composed,    the   design   of 


42  FROMENTIN 

a  landscape,  the  emotion  of  an  hour,  or  the  spirit  of 
an  epoch. 

"To  Fromentin,"  writes  Gabriel  Trarieux,  "the 
function  of  an  adjective  is  to  appeal,  not  to  the  eye 
or  ear,  but  to  the  moral  sense.  Nature,  to  this  psy- 
chologist, is  not  an  inert  colour,  but  an  inner  voice. 
He  shows  us  Africa,  and  more  especially  his  own 
heart.  Is  such  conscientiousness,  such  self-revelation, 
a  distinctive  mark  of  the  native  of  Charente?  For 
my  part,  I  think  it  is." 

His  offerings  to  the  Salon  continued  uninter- 
ruptedly, year  after  year.  Only  the  more  famous 
need  be  mentioned:  The  Moorish  Burial  (1850); 
The  Negro  Boatmen  (1859);  Horsemen  returning  from 
a  Fantasia,  Couriers  from  the  Land  of  the  Ouled 
Nails  (1861);  The  Arab  Bivouac  at  Daybreak,  The 
Arab  Falconer,  Hunting  with  the  Falcon  in  Algeria, 
The  Quarry  (1863);  Windstorm  in  the  Plains  of 
Algiers  (1864);  Heron  Hunting,  Thieves  of  the  Night 
(1865);    A  Tribe  on  the  March  through  the  Pasture 


FROMENTIN  43 

Lands  of  Tell,  A  Pool  in  an  Oasis  (1866);  Arabs 
attacked  by  a  Lioness  (1868);  Halt  of  the  Muleteers 
(1869);  and  his  last  five  pictures,  The  Grand  Canal 
and  The  Breakwater  (1872);  The  Ravine  (1874); 
The  Nile  and  View  of  Esneh  (1876). 

With  the  second  picture  that  he  exhibited,  The 
Place  of  the  Breach  in  Constantine,  the  talent  of  the 
painter  was  officially  recognized  by  the  bestowal  of  a 
Second  Class  Medal.  Fromentin,  nevertheless,  knew 
his  weaknesses.  What  distressed  him  the  most  was 
that  he  still  saw  what  was  pretty,  rather  than  what 
was  great;  a  defect  of  instinct  which  is  particularly 
conspicuous  in  The  Moorish  Burial  (1850)  and  The 
Gazelle  Hunt  (1859).  He  strove,  by  consulting  nature 
ceaselessly,  to  rid  himself  of  this  almost-but-not 
quite  tendency,  of  which  he  could  never  have  been 
cured  by  mere  studio  work.  He  soon  began,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  to  acquire  a  truer  and  broader 
vision.  He  grasped  this  singular  fact,  peculiar  to 
tropical   lands:    namely,   that,   howsoever   discordant 


44  FROMENTIN 

the  details  of  a  landscape  may  be,  they  form  a  sum 
total  that  is  always  simple  and  easy  to  transcribe 
upon  a  canvas.  Since  he  never  played  false,  either 
with  himself  or  with  nature,  he  mirrored  back  ac- 
curately, through  the  crystal  clearness  of  his  mind, 
the  form  and  colour  of  the  objects  before  him. 
Looking  to-day  at  such  pictures  as  An  Audience 
before  the  Caliph,  The  Negro  Boatmen^  and  a 
host  of  others,  we  breathe  in,  just  as  we  do  in  reading 
his  books,  that  indefinable  odour  of  the  Orient  which 
comes  from  the  smoke  of  the  camp  fires  and  the 
tobacco,  from  the  orange  trees  and  from  the  persons  of 
the  natives  themselves;  we  delight  our  eyes  with  the 
venerable  olive  trees  of  the  sacred  grove  at  Blidah, 
with  the  plain  bounded  on  the  north  by  the  long  chain 
of  the  hills  of  Sahel,  low-lying,  gray  in  the  morning, 
ruddy  at  noon,  with  just  one  white  spot  toward  the 
northeast,  at  Coleah,  where  there  is  a  vast  gap, 
formed  by  the  course  of  the  Mazapan  River,  through 
which  we  get  a  glimpse  of  the  sea. 


FROMENTIN  45 

The  entire  series  of  sketches  and  notes  which,  from 
Constantine  to  Biskra,  by  way  of  Lambessa,  Fro- 
mentin  collected  during  his  journey  into  the  heart  of 
Algeria,  he  was  destined  to  make  use  of  later  on,  to 
guard  himself  from  ever  falsifying.  And  if  the  colours 
of  his  paintings  are  often  timid,  it  is  precisely  for  the 
reason  that  in  the  seclusion  of  his  studio,  remote  from 
Africa,  he  lacked  that  pulsation  of  generous  light, 
with  which  he  needed  to  be  enveloped,  in  order  to 
kindle  his  palette  to  the  required  glow. 

III.  — AN    EVOLUTION 

Eugene  Fromentin  will  be  remembered  as  the 
painter  of  Algeria,  or  at  least  as  one  of  the  first  who 
revealed  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  beloved.  Not 
the  Algeria  of  the  South,  lost  amid  a  furnace  of  sun- 
shine and  of  sand,  but  the  Algeria  which  is  accessible 
to  all,  that  of  the  Arabs,  with  peaceful  cities  set  in  the 
midst  of  ruins,  and  grateful  palm  groves  forgotten, 
like  baskets  after  a  festival,   on  the  border  of  the 


46  FROMENTIN 

desert;  the  Algeria  of  ceremonious  and  brilliant  fan- 
tasias, of  mosques,  of  battle-fields  still  smoking,  and 
of  vagabond  tribes.  It  may  be  regretted  that  he 
contented  himself  with  seeing  the  Arab  exclusively 
outside  his  tent,  in  the  open  light  of  sand  and  sky, 
and  that,  instead  of  confining  his  studies  to  external 
phases  of  life,  he  never  ventured  to  penetrate  to  his 
hearthstone,  in  the  intimacy  of  his  family  life.  Yet 
who  would  reproach  the  artist  for  his  scrupulous 
delicacy  and  discretion? 

Jules  Claretie  was  quite  right  in  declaring  that 
Marilhat  brought  back  from  the  Orient  landscapes 
imbued  with  profound  melancholy.  Decamps  scenes 
distinguished  for  their  dazzling  brilliance,  Delacroix 
spectacles  of  majestic  grandeur,  and  that  Fromentin 
in  his  turn  discovered  in  that  land  of  light  a  personal 
note  which  his  predecessors  would  have  sought  in 
vain,  since  he  carried  it  within  himself.  The  colour 
scale  of  Fromentin  is  a  subdued  one;  his  favourite 
shades  are  the  half-tones. 


FROMENTIN  47 

In  the  presence  of  that  brilliant  land,  ennobled  by 
centuries  of  history,  Fromentin  remained,  neverthe- 
less, a  Parisian  of  the  purest  stock.  His  Arabs  are 
all  keenly  alert,  down  to  the  very  folds  of  their 
burnooses.  He  could  not  bear  to  behold  ugliness; 
he  transformed  it  through  the  golden  warp  of  his 
imagination.  Although  his  pictures  lack  the  harsh 
vibration  of  the  desert  and  a  sense  of  its  far-reaching 
monotony,  the  desert  nevertheless  loses  nothing  of 
its  grandeur;  because  his  poet's  understanding,  more 
infinite  than  the  expanses  of  the  dunes,  passed  of  its 
own  accord  beyond  the  bounds  of  a  horizon  which, 
unlike  that  of  the  sea,  is  not  void  save  for  the  passer- 
by who  is  incapable  of  emotion  and  comprehension. 
Beneath  his  sober  brush,  the  Arabs  retain  all  their 
strange  attractions,  which  he  amply  indicates  by  a 
single  dash  of  light,  just  as  in  his  books  he  evokes  a 
landscape  or  an  individual  by  a  single  word.  His 
eyes  took  in  the  outward  form  of  things  as  completely 
as   his   mind   penetrated   the   minds   of  others.     His 


48  FROMENTIN 

unwearied  power  of  observation  neglected  nothing 
that  pertained  to  hght;  consequently  the  accuracy  of 
his  paintings,  comparable  to  that  of  historic  documents, 
is  attested  by  every  traveller. 

The  Fantasia,  for  example,  gives  an  admirable 
presentment  of  the  open  country  around  Algiers  and 
of  one  aspect  of  Arab  manners  and  customs.  It 
shows  us  a  numerous  cavalcade  galloping  at  headlong 
speed,  with  clamorous  shouts  and  discharge  of  guns, 
across  a  broad  plain  toward  a  knoll  on  which  the 
mounted  emir  sits  in  judgment.  This  mingling  of 
motley  garments  and  of  horses  galloping  in  all  direc- 
tions produces  a  scene  of  extraordinary  animation 
and  a  liveliness  of  tone  that  contrasts  sharply  with 
the  bare  immensity  of  the  plain  and  the  uniformity 
of  the  sky. 

Suddenly,  in  1861,  Fromentin's  manner  was  marked 
by  a  complete  evolution.  Not  that  he  abandoned  the 
fine  and  delicate  methods  habitual  with  him,  the 
methods  of  a  poet  seeking  to  interpret  his  visions  and 


PLATE  VI.  — EGYPTIAN  WOMEN  ON  THE  BANK  OF 

THE  NILE 

(Musee  du  Louvre) 

In  this  attractive,  verdant  nook,  lighted  by  a  luminous  patch 
of  brilliant  fabrics,  the  artist  has  harmoniously  placed  a  group  of 
women.  While  some  of  them,  stretched  at  length  beneath  the 
shade,  gossip  together  while  they  rest,  two  of  their  number  are 
standing,  and  watch  the  JBow  of  the  sacred  river,  the  mys- 
terious Nile,  witness  of  so  many  things,  contemporaneous  with 
so  many  illustrious  civilizations.  This  picture  is  a  masterpiece 
of  composition  and  colour. 


FROMENTIN  51 

his  sentiments  through  his  skill  in  animated  composi- 
tion. Nothing  of  his  originality  was  sacrificed.  His 
power,  on  the  contrary,  was  increased,  because  he  had 
learned,  in  regard  to  the  inspiration  of  his  works,  how 
to  see  reality  more  truly,  and  in  regard  to  the  re- 
sources of  his  art,  how  to  understand  better  the  superior 
methods  of  his  compeers  and  his  masters.  But  he 
had  seen  Corot,  and  his  admiration  of  him  increased 
day  by  day;  it  was  the  influence  of  the  painter  of 
The  Farm  Wagon  that  induced  him  to  render  the  value 
of  colour  tones  in  accordance  with  their  harmonies 
rather  than  their  contrasts. 

Beginning  with  The  Verge  of  an  Oasis  during  the 
Sirocco,  one  can  see  how  Corot's  dexterous  and  delight- 
ful gray  came  to  life  again  under  Fromentin's  brush. 
"It  was  a  rare  distinction,"  writes  M.  Louis  Gonse, 
'*in  that  period  of  ardent  romanticism,  to  have  realized 
instinctively  the  value  of  gray,  its  caressing  softness, 
its  modest  yet  insistent  appeal.  Silver  gray,  amethys- 
tine and  turquoise  gray,  these  were  the  tones  of  which 


52  FROMENTIN 

Fromentin  was  soon  vaunting  the  delicate  and  tender 
charm.  I  remember  an  interview  which  I  had  with 
him  one  morning,  in  his  studio,  regarding  the  painter 
of  that  unique  masterpiece,  a  Souvenir  of  Marissal. 
Fromentin  was  in  fine  good  humour  and  buoyant  spirits. 
All  that  he  said  to  me  about  Corot,  his  place  in  art, 
his  daring  innovations,  his  inimitable  feeling  for  light, 
his  exquisite  sense  of  the  exact  tone,  was  well  worth 
remembering.  It  was  a  marvellous  offhand  estimate, 
the  substance  of  which  summed  up  deep-seated  con- 
victions. Beneath  that  flashing,  swift-winged  flight 
of  words,  I  felt  the  earnestness  of  opinions  bom  of 
long  reflection." 

From  1861  onward,  Fromentin  deserted  the  Sahara 
in  favour  of  Sahel,  exchanged  the  consuming  heat  of 
summer  for  a  milder  sunshine.  **He  sought,"  recorded 
Louis  Gonse,  **to  paint  in  lighter,  fresher  colours:  his 
instinct  counselled  him  to  avoid  black  as  a  mortal 
enemy  —  that  black  which  certain  painters  deliber- 
ately affect,  thinking  that  in  this  way  they  are  imitating 


FROMENTIN  53 

the  old  masters.  All  those  soft  grays,  which  are  lumi- 
nous half-tones  of  white,  appeared  imperceptibly  be- 
neath his  brush.  After  having  won  distinction  as  a 
colourist,  he  became  and  remained  to  the  end  a  master 
of  tonal  harmony  in  the  subtlest  sense.  According 
to  the  opinion  of  Sainte-Beuve,  *  he  attained  his  great- 
est effects  by  combining  the  simplest  methods  in  a 
marvellous  manner.'  And  since  his  ambition  was 
of  steady  growth,  his  progress  in  his  craft  was 
uninterrupted . ' ' 

Among  Fromentin's  productions  of  this  period 
are:  The  Shepherds  on  the  High  Plateaus  of  Kabylia, 
an  austere  spectacle  witnessed  on  the  road  from 
Medeah  to  Boghar;  The  Bed  of  the  Oued  Mzi;  and 
the  charming  canvas  of  Turkish  Houses  in  MustaphO' 
in- Algiers.  In  1863,  he  produced  The  Arab  Bivouac 
at  Daybreak,  which,  by  its  presentment  of  salient 
details  and  its  sympathetic  understanding  of  the 
slightest  gesture,  sets  before  us  the  impressive  melan- 
choly of  the  nomad  life;    he  produced  further   The 


54  FROMENTIN 

Arab  Falconer,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  his 
smaller  works;  and  lastly,  Hunting  with  the  Falcon 
in  Algeria,  which  many  of  his  admirers  regard  as  his 
masterpiece,  and  which,  at  all  events,  is  his  most 
famous  painting.  It  may  now  be  seen  in  the  col- 
lection in  the  Louvre. 

Fromentin  repeatedly  duplicated,  in  crayon,  in 
aquarelle,  and  in  oil,  this  scene  which  represents  two 
Arab  chiefs  hunting,  accompanied  by  their  attendants. 
The  horseman  in  the  middle  of  the  picture,  an  old  man 
holding  a  falcon,  resembles,  on  his  motionless  horse, 
an  equestrian  statue.  The  second  horseman,  the  one 
in  the  foreground,  is  undoubtedly  his  son;  he  is  as 
attractive  as  a  pretty  girl  and  young  like  the  horse 
he  rides,  a  white  horse,  of  a  beautiful,  silvery  white, 
the  lower  part  of  the  legs  shading  off  into  an  exquisite 
rose  tint.  The  rider  is  clad  in  blue,  white,  and  gray, 
while  a  saddle  of  turquoise  blue,  enriched  with  trim- 
mings of  glazed  vermillion,  adorns  the  courser,  which 
is  distinguished  by  a  luxuriant  mane,  an  ample,  flow- 


FROMENTIN  55 

ing  tail  tinged  with  ochre  and  amber,  and  a  black  eye, 
profound  and  full  of  life.  Two  Arabs,  kneeling  in 
the  pathway,  have  taken  possession  of  a  hare  which 
the  falcons  have  just  killed.  The  whole  effect  is  that 
of  extreme  distinction,  marred  perhaps  by  too  much 
embellishment. 

In  1870,  Fromentin  found  his  way  to  Venice.  At 
the  first  rumours  of  war,  however,  he  returned  precipi- 
tately to  France,  to  join  his  wife  and  daughter  in  Paris 
and  take  them  to  Saint-Maurice,  his  beloved  village 
adjacent  to  La  Rochelle.  From  Venice,  he  brought 
back  The  Grand  Canal  and  The  Breakwater,  two 
canvases  somewhat  leaden  in  tone,  which  some  critics 
class  in  the  number  of  Fromentin's  blunders.  The 
reason  may  be  that  they  failed  to  recognize  in  them 
the  Venice  of  their  dreams,  the  Venice  of  tradition, 
flamboyant  and  enchanted.  But  there  is  another,  a 
tranquillized  Venice,  which  at  times  allows  her  fire- 
works to  burn  out.  Fromentin  was  not  a  romantic 
painter;  it  was  in  their  hours  of  repose  that  he  beheld 


56  FROMENTIN 

the  Grand  Canal,  the  Breakwater,  the  houses  leaning 
over  the  water's  brink;  and  he  expressed  what  he 
really  saw  in  the  midst  of  a  silence  that  contains  a 
special  poetry  as  well  as  truth.  Fromentin  exhibited 
for  the  last  time  in  the  Salon  of  1876  —  two  canvases 
brought  back  from  Egypt,  The  Nile  and  A  Souvenir 
of  Esneh,  canvases  distinguished  for  their  ''cold,  dull 
colouring,  ranging  through  a  neutral  scale  of  violet 
lights." 

The  masterpiece  of  Fromentin,  the  picture  in  which 
his  qualities  of  composition,  drawing,  and  colour  are 
most  clearly  revealed,  is,  in  the  opinion  of  all  artists 
—  who  are  alone  capable  of  simultaneously  appre- 
ciating the  art  and  the  craftsmanship  of  a  painting  — 
Crossing  the  Ford.  This  picture  is  now  in  the  possession 
of  Mme.  Isaac  Pereire.  Across  a  canvas  measuring 
little  more  than  two  yards,  a  group  of  horsemen  are 
journeying  through  a  waste  of  sand,  stretching  away 
in  long,  pallid  dunes,  broken  here  and  there  by 
clumps  of  sombre  growth;    a  swarm  of  women  sur- 


FROMENTIN  57 

rounds  them,  as  light  of  foot  as  bees  upon  the  wing. 
A  stream,  bordered  on  the  right  by  tamarinds  with 
sharp,   narrow   leafage,   displays   its   slender,    mirror- 
like  surface.     Some   of  the   horses   are   reserved   for 
the  chiefs,   while  others  are  laden  with   burdens  of 
clothing  and  provisions.     The  sky,  partly  clear  and 
partly  overcast,  occupies  the  greater  portion  of  the 
canvas:   in  the  far  distance,  the  swelling  curve  of  the 
horizon  conveys  a  strong  impression  of  infinity  and 
solitude.     The  central  figures  are  drawn  upon  a  scale 
hardly  exceeding  eight  inches  in  height.     The  horses, 
fired  with  that  generous  pride  which  this  painter  always 
attributes   to   them,   seem   to  know  their  way   even 
better  than  their  riders.     They  proceed  without  haste, 
enjoying  the  gentle  breeze  stirring  fitfully  across  the 
vast  expanse,  and  the  time  of  day,  which  is  growing 
late.     The  colour  scheme  of  the  picture  is  bold  and 
conveys  an  exquisite  savour  of  gold  and  gray,  flickering 
flames  vanishing  behind  the  leafage,  as  well  as  along 
the  horizon,  as  the  dusk  shuts  down.     In  this  picture, 


58  FROMENTIN 

Fromentin  has  produced,  with  the  simplest  and  most 
adaptable  resources  of  his  palette,  a  work  in  which, 
underneath  all  the  surface  charm,  the  melancholy 
which  abides  in  the  heart  of  man,  and  above  all  in 
the  heart  of  the  Arab,  blends  harmoniously  with  the 
beauty  of  the  world. 

IV.  — THE   MASTER:    HIS    PERSONALITY   AND 
HIS   DESTINY 

One  of  the  masters  of  to-day,  of  a  generous  and 
impulsive  nature,  who  does  not  wish  to  be  quoted 
by  name,  but  whose  works  may  be  admired  in  the 
Luxembourg,  consented  to  give  me  some  information 
regarding  Fromentin,  whose  pupil  he  once  was.  I 
should  like,  as  a  conclusion  to  this  study,  to  be  able 
to  transcribe  literally  what  he  told;  but  at  least  I 
shall  draw  a  pious  inspiration  from  his  words. 

Fromentin  laid  on  his  colours  very  thickly.  His 
solid  grounds  were  always  most  carefully  prepared 
and  his  composition  calculated  in  advance  down  to 


PLATE  VII.  — HUNTING   WITH   THE    FALCON 

(Musee  du  Louvre) 

Falconry  is  an  episode  of  African  life  which  peculiarly  attracted 
Fromentin.  He  has  treated  it  in  a  number  of  different  pictures, 
all  equally  remarkable.  The  collection  in  the  Louvre  possesses 
two :  the  one  which  we  give  here  is  distinguished  by  the  cleverness 
of  its  composition,  the  way  in  which  its  component  parts  are 
distributed  throughout  the  prospective,  in  accordance  with  the 
desired  effect,  thus  lighting  up  the  gray  immensity  with  joyous 
and  violent  tints. 


FROMENTIN  6i 

the  smallest  detail.  At  the  start,  he  came  under  the 
influence  of  Decamps,  Marilhat,  and  more  especially 
Delacroix,  and  in  consequence  neglected  line  work, 
devoting  himself  solely  to  the  distribution  of  colours. 
Delacroix  and  the  romantic  school  of  his  time  did  not 
interpret  Algeria  well,  because  they  failed  to  see  it 
well.  They  saw  it  through  the  black  holes  of  windows, 
in  all  the  violence  of  its  whites  and  reds,  in  the  pic- 
turesqueness  of  its  costumes  and  the  long  stretches  of 
its  dusty  streets.  But  Fromentin  had  visited  Italy, 
and  during  his  excursions  across  this  museum  of  diverse 
aspects  he  made  a  special  study  of  the  effects  of 
sunshine  upon  the  handiwork  of  man.  It  was  while 
still  saturated  with  the  brilliance  and  with  the  art 
treasures  of  Italy  that  he  first  saw  the  land  of  Africa, 
or  rather  that  he  first  conceived  the  desire  to  leam 
to  know  its  secrets.  Fromentin  never  put  upon  his 
canvases  the  Africa  of  the  desert,  in  which  there  is 
nothing  but  the  white  of  the  burnoose  and  the  gray  of 
the  dune,  but  Algeria  the  Fair,  Algeria  already  civi- 


62  FROMENTIN 

lized.     He  was  enraptured  by  the  sight  of  it  and  by 

the   penetrating   conception,    full   of  eager   curiosity, 

which  he  had  already  formed  of  it.     For  Fromentin 

does  not  command  by  the  audacity  of  his  colours;    he 

commands  by  the  charm  of  his  apportionment  of  light 

and  shadow,  and  by  the  precision  of  a  style  which 

seeks,  irrespective   of  form,  to  show  us   the  soul  of 

people  and  of  things.     He  sees  with  the  eyes  of  a  poet, 

he  expresses  himself  in  the  manner  of  a  philosopher,  he 

forces  us  to  reflect.     He  detests  all  that  is  vulgar, 

superfluous,   and   extravagant.     All   that   pertains   to 

reality  has  for  him  a  significance,  of  which  he  seeks 

the  cause,   and  for  which  he  frequently  discovers  a 

definitive  expression. 

Through  his  habit  of  studying  the  inner  workings 
of  the  mind  of  man,  he  reached  a  point,  toward  the 
end  of  his  life,  when  he  ceased  to  compose,  even  in 
painting,  any  works  other  than  those  of  a  man  of 
letters.  The  keenest  intellectual  alertness  was  always 
ceaselessly   pulsating   within    him.     Furthermore,    he 


FROMENTIN  63 

made  a  sort  of  religious  cult  of  life  in  all  its  forms, 
even  the  most  humble,  and  imbued  them  with  an 
ennobling  charm.  And  for  the  purpose  of  under- 
standing the  psychology  of  a  race  which  enwraps  itself 
jealously  in  a  pride  of  attitude,  the  works  of  Fromentin 
offer  testimony  that  bears  the  stamp  of  rare  sincerity 
and  clear-sighted  sympathy.  His  mind  never  wastes 
time  over  the  eccentricities  of  a  tribe  or  a  people,  but 
bends  its  whole  effort  to  gathering  up,  through  a 
choice  of  typical  details,  the  general  idea,  the  embodi- 
ment of  a  human  group. 

Fromentin  knew,  better  than  anyone  else,  how 
great  his  lack  was  of  elementary  training  in  painting. 
He  knew  that  no  natural  gift  can  replace  those  initial 
steps  in  craftsmanship  in  any  and  all  forms  of  pro- 
duction, and  that  works  which  are  truly  beautiful  and 
worthy  of  being  held  in  honour  through  the  centuries 
obtain  their  right  to  live  solely  from  having  obeyed 
the  laws  of  order  and  of  clearness.  These  laws,  as 
related  to  pictorial  art,  are  taught  in  the  studio  and 


64  FROMENTIN 

the  school.  A  naturally  gifted  artist  may  undoubtedly 
evolve,  out  of  his  own  personal  inspiration,  an  amusing 
or  interesting  work ;  but  that  work,  if  not  constructed 
according  to  the  syntactic  rules  peculiar  to  his  art, 
will  have  merely  an  ephemeral  charm,  like  the  costly 
baubles  of  a  passing  fashion.  What  proves  the  neces- 
sity of  rules  of  technique  is  that  the  masters  themselves 
have  not  been  contented  with  the  possession  of  genius 
or  talent  alone.  They  have  learned  their  craft  down 
to  its  profoundest  secrets;  and  the  greatest  of  these 
masters  are  the  ones  who  have  succeeded  best  in  prac- 
tising the  methods  transmitted  by  past  experience, 
and  have  even  in  their  turn  discovered  new  laws. 

How  many  times,  with  touching  modesty,  Fro- 
mentin  deplored  his  total  lack  of  the  essential  studies 
of  apprenticeship!  Beneath  the  colour  of  forms  and 
objects,  he  grasped  the  course  and  movement  of  life. 
But  his  restless  hands  did  not  succeed  completely,  to 
his  own  satisfaction,  in  transferring  them  to  his  can- 
vas.    Nevertheless,  his  pictures,  because  imbued  with 


FROMENTIN  65 

an  emotion,  the  contagion  of  which  was  communicated 
to  their  colours,  far  from  resembling,  as  so  many  others 
do,  a  sort  of  clever  and  inert  photograph,  are  evoca- 
tions, and  often  magnificent  ones,  of  some  historic 
hour,  of  the  destiny  of  a  race,  or  the  soul  of  a  landscape. 
Under  the  influence  of  the  romantic  school,  as  I 
have  already  said,  Fromentin's  brush  sought  at  first 
chiefly  to  dazzle.  But  one  day  he  awoke  to  a  com- 
prehension of  Corot.  The  inward  emotion  which  he 
underwent  affected  him  like  the  discovery  of  a  new 
light.  A  transformation  followed  rapidly,  not  in  his 
ability  to  feel,  but  in  his  fashion  of  reproducing  what 
he  felt.  Yielding  joyfully  to  the  authority  of  Corot, 
he  began  to  make  use  of  gray,  and  before  long  it  became 
his  dominant  tone.  Like  a  frail  cloud  interspersed 
with  invisible  rays  of  red  and  azure,  enveloping  the 
atmosphere  of  his  scenes  and  characters,  and  blending 
into  his  minutely  wrought  skies,  this  gray  of  his, 
which  borrowed  something  of  its  hue  from  each  of 
the  primary  colours,  pleased  him  by  the  very  discreet- 


66  FROMENTIN 

ness  of  its.  opulence.  Discreetness  is  one  of  the  hall- 
marks of  refinement;  and  Fromentin  was  nothing,  if 
not  refined,  in  his  manners,  his  thoughts,  and  his 
speech.  ''Just  as  his  painting  was  never  heavy  and 
his  writing  never  dull,"  says  Emile  Montegut,  **his 
physical  build  was  slender,  graceful,  delicate;  yet  his 
slendemess  was  in  no  way  weakness,  nor  his  delicacy 
affectation.  No  objectionable  professional  mannerism 
proclaimed  the  craft  he  practised;  still  less  did  he 
ape  the  manners  of  the  man  of  fashion,  in  order  to 
hide  the  fact  that  he  was  a  man  of  toil.  With  all 
his  frankness,  he  had  the  good  taste  to  refrain  from 
betraying  his  intimate  personality  to  the  worid  at 
large." 

It  was  precisely  this  use  which  he  made  of  gray 
that  enabled  him,  by  its  play  of  half-tones,  to  explore 
the  mystery  of  souls.  And  quite  unconsciously  he 
revealed  his  own,  a  noble  soul,  enamoured  of  all  that 
is  great  and  eternal  in  civilization  and  in  life.  When 
face  to  face  with  an  actual  scene,  he  frequently  gave 


FROMENTIN  67 

up  the  attempt  to  transfer  it  with  his  brush.  It  was 
not  until  much  later,  after  long  reflection  over  the 
material  conditions  of  a  scene  whose  beauty  had 
delighted  his  eye,  that  he  was  ready  to  begin  work. 

Consequently  there  are  other  artists  who  have  more 
accurately  rendered  the  colour  of  this  African  land: 
there  are,  for  instance,  Guillaumet  and  Regnault. 
With  a  somewhat  austere,  yet  precise,  touch,  after 
the  fashion  of  an  extremely  well-informed  commentator 
rather  than  a  deeply  moved  poet,  Guillaumet  shows 
us,  in  all  their  picturesque  authenticity,  the  history 
and  architecture  of  buildings  ravaged  by  the  sun,  and 
outlined  against  them  the  stately  silhouettes  of  Arabs 
to  whom  silence  appears  to  be  a  sort  of  religious  rite. 
Yet  the  sublime  poetry  of  the  desert  has  also  touched 
his  painter's  heart  in  The  Evening  Meal,  now  in  the 
collection  in  the  Luxembourg;  the  thin  blue  smoke, 
melting  away  into  the  calm  atmosphere,  is  typical  of 
the  immobility  of  the  Sahara,  the  sullen  oppressiveness 
of    daytime    amid    the    sands.     Henri    Regnault,    in 


68  FROMENTIN 

works  that  are  scarcely  more  than  sketches  and  have 
never  been  exhibited,  transcribed,  with  all  the  ardour 
of  his  age,  during  too  brief  a  sojourn  in  Morocco,  the 
symphony  of  divine  colours  which  exhales  from  the 
soil  of  Africa  and  from  its  sky,  that  bums  like  living 
coals. 

Fromentin  did  not  always  dare  to  undertake  to 
paint  his  own  conceptions.  His  timidity  is  betrayed 
by  the  very  modesty  of  his  canvases,  which  scarcely 
exceed  two  yards.  Nevertheless,  the  painter  whom  he 
loved  the  most  was  Rubens:  Rubens,  the  prodigal 
dispenser  of  light,  who  poured  his  inexhaustible  and 
gorgeous  imaginings,  like  the  waters  of  a  mighty  river, 
over  canvases  without  number. 

Fromentin  did  not  find  it  easy  to  give  forth  the 
treasures  of  his  brain,  excepting  through  the  medium 
of  writing.  He  delighted  in  sumptuousness,  and  he 
found  it  in  Rubens,  whom  he  eulogized,  in  his 
Masters  of  Yesterday,  in  a  truly  lyric  strain.  He  did 
not   understand    Rembrandt   and    despaired   of  ever 


PLATE   VIII.  — A  HALT  AT  AN  OASIS 

(Musee  du  Louvre) 

The  weary  caravan  has  halted,  tempted  by  the  verdure  of 
the  oasis.  Faithful  to  his  manner,  Fromentin  has  taken  advantage 
of  this  picturesque  scene  to  throw  a  harmony  of  colour  and  light 
over  the  men  and  their  surroundings.  In  all  its  simplicity,  this 
picture  is  one  of  its  author's  happiest  efforts,  because  of  the  im- 
pression of  life  which  emanates  from  this  group,  relatively  so  few 
in  number. 


FROMENTIN  71 

understanding  him.  He  studied  him  constantly,  with 
a  sort  of  impatience,  striving  to  glimpse,  through  his 
veils  of  half-shadows,  the  spirit  of  a  genius  who  was 
too  alien  in  nature,  country,  and  race. 

Among  Fromentin's  pupils  was  Cormon,  an  intrac- 
table pupil  with  a  marked  individuality;  yet  while  he 
ignored  his  professional  authority,  he  always  pro- 
claimed him,  and  with  real  feeling,  the  most  intelli- 
gent of  masters  and  the  most  loyal  of  men.  Fromentin 
did  not  exactly  conduct  a  regular  art-school.  He  had 
gathered  around  him  seven  or  eight  young  artists,  in 
whom  he  foresaw  a  prosperous  future:  Gervex,  ex- 
tremely brilliant,  Thirion,  the  most  temperamental  of 
them  all,  Lhermitte  and  Humbert,  who  was  the 
master's  favourite.  Fromentin  saw  in  Humbert  a  second 
self,  more  fortunate  in  having  a  chance  to  learn  at 
the  outset  the  indispensable  rules  of  his  craft,  and 
therefore  capable  later  on  of  achieving  works  which 
he  himself  could  never  carry  out.  Without  effort,  he 
won  the  adoration  of  his  pupils.     With  an  eloquence 


72  FROMENTIN 

which  came  from  his  heart  quite  as  much  as  from  his 
brain,  he  preached  to  them  the  doctrine  of  sincere 
labour,  of  disinterested  ideals,  and  of  reverence  for 
the  past  because  it  has  produced  the  present.  He 
had  a  combative  spirit.  He  never  hesitated  to  express 
his  opinion  about  works  or  about  men,  since  the 
nobility  of  his  character  forbade  that  he  should  be 
suspected  of  maliciousness  or  envy.  Certain  works 
of  his  time,  that  are  still  discussed  and  that  our  own 
age  has  consecrated,  were  displeasing  to  him:  Millet's, 
for  example.  He  professed  a  profound  esteem  for 
the  man,  but  he  did  not  admit  the  technical  value 
of  the  artist  nor  the  importance  of  his  ideas. 

For  a  long  time  Fromentin's  rank  as  a  painter  was 
disputed.  He  proceeded  peaceably  on  his  way  toward 
fortune  and  glory.  His  literary  successes  confirmed 
and  enhanced  his  triumphs  as  a  painter.  Through 
his  books  his  pictures  became  known  and  admired  by 
the  general  public.  In  1859,  he  obtained  a  First  Class 
Medal  and  the  Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.     The 


FROMENTIN  73 

emperor,  Napoleon  III.,  invited  him  to  Compiegne. 
In  1869,  his  election  as  OfBcer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor 
followed  upon  his  exhibition  of  the  Fantasia  in  Algeria 
and  The  Halt  of  the  Muleteers.  In  1868,  he  exhibited 
a  very  strange  and  disconcerting  picture:  Male  and 
Female  Centaurs  practising  at  Archery.  He  wished 
to  show  by  means  of  this  work,  which  evoked  much 
comment  and  criticism,  that  **the  equestrian  statue  is 
the  last  word  in  human  statuary."  "Mingle,"  he 
wrote,  '*man  and  horse,  give  to  the  rest  of  the  body  the 
combined  attributes  of  alertness  and  vigour,  and  you 
have  a  being  which  is  supremely  strong,  thinking  and 
acting,  brave  and  swift,  free,  and  yet  docile."  Fro- 
mentin's  aristocratic  instincts  extended  from  men  to 
things,  and  even  to  animals.  It  was  he  who  in  a  certain 
sense  discovered  the  horse,  the  Arab  horse,  fine  and 
free,  poet  of  the  desert  and  the  sun  quite  as  much 
as  his  master.  When  Fromentin  shows  him  to  us 
with  his  long  silvery  tail  and  his  mane  quivering  like 
waves,  one  would  say  that  in  the  swift  flight  of  his 


74  FROMENTIN 

course  the  artist  had  lent  him  wings.  **  Neverthe- 
less," writes  one  critic,  "in  spite  of  his  intimate  ac- 
quaintance with  the  form  and  the  varied  coat  of  the 
Arab  horse,  it  is  perhaps  in  the  little  inaccuracies  of 
his  drawing  of  this  animal  that  Fromentin  betrays 
most  obviously  the  defectiveness  of  his  early  studies." 

What  a  pity,  let  us  say  once  again,  that  he  lacked 
the  time  to  acquire,  while  still  young,  that  power  and 
technique  in  painting  which  he  possessed  in  literature! 
Each  one  of  his  volumes  evoked  an  outburst  of  ad- 
miration and  sympathy.  He  wrote  only  when  he 
had  something  definite  to  say.  His  novel,  Dominiquey 
fired  with  the  spirit  of  youth,  burning  with  love 
and  sorrow,  was,  from  the  date  of  its  publication,  in 
1862,  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  hailed  as  a 
masterpiece. 

Not  everywhere,  however.  The  poets  alone,  the 
born  writers,  those  in  whom  the  habit  of  psychology 
and  criticism  had  not  extinguished  that  personal 
flame  which   burns  within  the  heart,   Sainte-Beuve, 


FROMENTIN  75 

for  example,  and  George  Sand,  recognized  it  as  a 
work  of  genius.  It  was  much  discussed  and  even 
disparaged,  by  professional  writers  and  critics,  even  in 
the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  itself.  Emile  Montegut, 
who  combined  absolute  frankness  with  a  wide  range 
of  knowledge  and  keen  understanding,  while  not  dis- 
puting the  literary  value  of  Dominique^  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  affirm  that  the  book  was  not  a  novel,  but  a 
series  of  faultily  composed  scenes  and  descriptions, 
confessions,  and  memories. 

At  first,  and  for  some  time  afterward,  the  public 
seemed  to  ratify  this  opinion.  The  volume,  issued  by 
Hachette,  was  bought  only  at  rare  intervals  and  out 
of  curiosity.  Later,  after  this  initial  failure,  it  took 
a  fresh  start,  and  to-day  is  a  recognized  classic.  For, 
while  it  is  true  that  this  prose  poem  is  lacking  in 
intrigue  and  that  its  characters  are  somewhat  over- 
whelmed by  the  floods  of  light  from  its  stage-settings, 
it  diffuses  such  a  redolence  of  the  soil  teeming  with 
life,  such  a  fragrance  of  warm  and  pure  tenderness, 


76  FROMENTIN 

that  every  sensitive  and  ardent  soul  delights  to  yield 
itself  to  the  harmonious  flow  of  its  words  and  colours. 
The  Masters  of  Yesterday  has  become  a  breviary 
for  painters  who  are  studying  the  Flemish  and  Dutch 
schools.  "The  Fromentin  revealed  in  The  Masters 
of  Yesterday,''  asserts  Emile  Montegut,  **is  a  second 
Taine,  minus  the  defects  for  which  the  latter  is  re- 
proached, and  minus  that  sort  of  harshness  which 
comes  from  the  exclusive  use  of  crude  colours  and  a 
disdain  of  half-tones.  There  is  also  this  further 
difference  between  them:  that  Taine  puts  his  bat- 
talions of  ideas  and  facts  through  their  manoeuvres 
with  the  imperiousness  of  a  general-in-chief  com- 
manding an  action,  while  Fromentin  assembles  and 
reviews  his  own  with  the  ease  of  an  orchestra  leader 
directing  the  instruments  under  his  orders  by  the 
simple  gesture  of  his  bow.  .  .  .  Just  one  word  is 
applicable,  in  point  of  strict  definition,  to  the  tempera- 
ment and  talent  of  Fromentin:  that  word  is  perfec- 
tion.   He  strove  for  it  all  his  life.     He  deserves  to  be 


FROMENTIN  77 

called  the  classic  of  that  type  of  picturesque  literature, 
whose  ambition,  at  the  outset,  looked  toward  a  very 
different  goal  from  that  of  gaining  this  title,  and  whose 
enterprises  and  audacities  the  classic  school  of  art 
could  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  have  beheld  without 
alarm."  This  book  is,  without  doubt,  Fromentin's 
best.  For,  while  the  majority  of  art  critics  are  merely 
amateurs  posing  as  craftsmen  and  judges,  he  knew 
quite  well  whereof  he  spoke.  While  he  understood 
as  well  as  the  others,  and  even  better,  an  author's 
purpose,  he  could  also  see  of  what  material  and  by 
what  means  the  work  of  this  same  artist  was  com- 
posed. He  was  not  a  dilettante,  endowed  with  a 
greater  or  less  amount  of  taste,  but  a  fellow  crafts- 
man, who  knew  how  to  mix  his  own  colours  and  to 
analyze  the  palette  of  another. 

His  literary  works  entitled  him  to  a  seat  in  the 
Academic  Frangaise  considerably  sooner  than  he 
could  have  dreamed  of  the  Academic  des  Beaux-Arts. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  1874,  he  offered  himself,  at 


78  FROMENTIN 

the  urgent  entreaty  of  his  friends,  as  a  candidate  for 
the  Academie  Frangaise,  quite  suddenly  and  when  it 
was  already  too  late  to  bring  any  influence  to  bear, 
while  solemn  pledges  had  already  been  secured  by  his 
competitors.  In  spite  of  this,  the  weight  of  his  name 
secured  him  thirteen  or  fourteen  votes. 

He  was  preparing  a  volume  of  critical  studies  on 
the  French  school  and  planning  another  on  the  Italian 
school,  when  death  abruptly  cut  him  short,  at  the  age 
of  fifty -five,  in  the  midst  of  a  steady  ascension  into  the 
light  of  fame.  It  was  a  misfortune  for  France.  In 
the  beauty  of  his  character,  as  lofty  as  that  of  his 
genius,  he  offered  an  example  of  the  most  precious 
qualities  of  man  and  artist:  uprightness,  charity, 
good  taste  in  what  he  admired,  and  sincerity  in  what  he 
tried  to  do.  The  name  of  Eugene  Fromentin  grows 
greater  day  by  day;  clouds  may  pass  before  him,  as 
before  a  star,  but  without  ever  effacing  him. 


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